Boule Patisserie and Sprinkles Cupcakery

Next stop on my L.A. Bakery tour with Amy: Boule. Prices aside, Boule is hands-down my favorite L.A. bakery - they create some really beautiful and interesting desserts and present them as miniature works of art. Yes, you pay for the presentation, but you also pay for some of the highest quality and most exotic ingredients you'll find in any L.A. bakery... tonka beans from South America, Kalamansi limes from Southeast Asia, real Lapsang souchong tea from China. It's a patisserie for slightly more adventurous palates... those seeking basic chocolate truffles may be surprised to bite into a truffle infused with habanero pepper (which, as I learned at their recent tasting, is HOT!).

But one Boule treat sure to please every palate is the macaroons. They're fluffy and a little bit chewy, with a slightly crunchy shell that gives way to a rich, soft interior. With something for every flavour fetish, they come in approx 8-10 different flavours each day, with a rainbow-sherbet color palette to match.

Front row, front to back: chocolate, lemon
Center row: raspberry, lavender, pistachio, coconut
Back row: lemon, tahitian vanilla, lemon, raspberry

Meet Mr. Lemon Big Mac

All the flavours are really good, but I particularly like raspberry, coconut and lemon. Sadly, two of my favorites, passion fruit and apple cinnamon, were replaced by two new flavours, lavender and mocha. The lavender is interesting and quite good, the mocha is probably my least favourite of the batch.

We also picked up a lemon tart...

(I'd love to comment on this, but Brian ate it all before I had a chance to taste it... it sure looks pretty, doesn't it?)

Some chocolates...

Counterclockwise from top: Oscuro (Lapsang souchong-infused chocolate, dark and smoky), Lili (Passionfruit Ivoire, a fruity white chocolate), Jade (green tea, smooth and soothing), and a new truffle, I didn't get the name of it, that contains black licorice.

A purse of Boule's fantastic fleur de sel caramels, and I was set. Most women come home from shopping and lay out all their new clothes and shoes... I come home from shopping, and lay out my bounty of treats:


Boule
420 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90048
310-289-9977
Hours: Mon-Sat, 10AM-7PM, Sun 10AM-5PM

Next stop: Sprinkles Cupcakery in Beverly Hills.

I must be getting old... when did cupcakes become all the rage? I guess it started with Magnolia Bakery in New York, which hit mainstream (read: exploitable) popularity when its cupcakes were featured on Sex and the City and then again in the completely hilarious Lazy Sunday SNL skit. Like many one-trick food wonders, what starts in New York frequently trickles down to L.A., and we Angelenos were quick to gobble up our very own cupcakery - Sprinkles.

On a once semi-quiet street in Beverly Hills came the cupcake invasion: you may not actually recognize the photo at left, because there's not a line of 200 people coming out the door (photo from Food GPS, which has an informative article on Sprinkles' cupcake philosophy).

So on a sunny and otherwise pleasant Saturday afternoon, we stood in line for nearly 40 minutes for our cupcakes. Let me rephrase that: we stood in line nearly 40 minutes for the PRIVILEGE of paying $3.25/each or $36/dozen for cupcakes. During this time, several curious passerby had to ask what we were doing: What are you guys buying tickets for? What's going on inside Rubio's? (Rubio's Fish Tacos is right next door) Is this the line for Rubio's? What's this line for? By the fifth or sixth inquiry, you start to wonder yourself: what AM I standing in this ridiculously long line for, anyways?

Oh yeah, cupcakes:


Sprinkles offers about 10 different flavors of cupcakes each day. On Saturday, we chose from: Banana, Black & White, Coconut, Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Red Velvet, Strawberry, Vanilla, and Vanilla Milk Chocolate. I was a little disappointed that they shelter the more exotic flavours from the Saturday tourist crowd. Alas, I'd have to come back all week to sample Carrot (Mon, Thurs), Ginger Lemon (Wed), Orange (Wed), Pumpkin (Wed, Fri), and Chai Latte (Friday).

At $36/dozen, you hope that they'll be legendary. My first taste test was dark chocolate.

Blech. WAY too sweet - I almost had to spit it out. I know what you're thinking, "Hey dummy, it's a chocolate cupcake, it's supposed to be sweet." Well, this was like your basic devil's chocolate cake with an extra two pounds of sugar. Chocolate comes unsweetened, so there's no excuse for something so over-sugared. Vulgar.

Fortunately, the next two were a bit lighter. Here's the coconut...

The coconut was also way too sweet, but manageable. I really liked the coconut sweetened cake; the sugar-saturated frosting combined with the sweetened coconut flakes was a little much, but pretty good overall.

Finally, banana:

Banana was by far my favourite of the three. Why? I could actually eat a second bite without feeling like my teeth were going to fall out. The cake was a sweetened version of banana bread, rich and moist and very homemade-tasting. The cream cheese frosting was again oversweetened, but at least it had the tang of the cheese base to mellow it out.

Sprinkles Cupcakes
9635 Little Santa Monica Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
310-274-8765
Hours: Mon-Sat, 10AM-7PM

By the time we got out of Sprinkles, most bakeries were nearing closing time. Next time Amy comes to visit, I'm planning to take her to Jin Patisserie in Venice and Bluebird Bakery in Culver City. Any others we should check out?